[Techtalk] Soundcard not cooperating.

[Laurel Fan]

On Wed, May 08, 2002 at 05:32:48PM -0700, Conni wrote:
> I rebooted, since that fixed it last time.  No such luck. 
> crw-------    1 conni    root      14,   3 Aug 30  2001 /dev/dsp
> crw-------    1 conni    root      14,   3 Aug 30  2001 /dev/audio
> 
> I haven't fully gotten the hang of permissions yet, but this means that
> the owner can read and write, and root owns it, but I'm using it?  What
> does the c mean?  (d is directory, I know)

The permissions are read and write by owner only, owned by user conni
and group root, so it looks like you should have permissions to write
to it...

>From the netbsd manpage for ls (for some reason I can't find it in the
info or man page on linux):

           b     Block special file.
           c     Character special file.
           d     Directory.
           l     Symbolic link.
           s     Socket link.
           p     FIFO.
           w     Whiteout.
           -     Regular file.

Character special file is the right type for an audio device.

(anyone know what a 'Whiteout' is?)

Have you tried just catting a file to the audio device?  (catting a
wav file to /dev/dsp should play the wav file, but if you don't have
one handy, you can use pretty much any file, it'll just sound bad).

-- 
laurel at sdf.lonestar.org
http://dreadnought.gorgorg.org